which we call the brain? Yet every one thinks, and knows that he thinks. Thus, in the Christian religion, the profoundest mysteries relating to God, eternity and the soul are certified to us in their reality when they cannot be explained through our philosophy.

Let it be further noted that our fellowship with the Father, Son and Spirit is not with them in their hidden relations within the Godhead, but in the outward work which they perform in a revealed system of grace. In carefully marking this line of distinction we will be protected from error by being kept close to the testimony of Scripture.

The passage at the head of this chapter sufficiently affirms our fellowship with the Father. Testimony equally explicit will set forth our fellowship with the Son and with the Holy Ghost. It may be well, however, to mass together just here a few citations which connect the believer's fellowship with all the Persons in the active discharge of their respective functions. Thus, in John xiv. 1, we read, "Ye believe in God, believe also in me;" and in verse 23, "If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” The same divine voice, speaking from the midst of the golden candlesticks, saith (Rev. iii. 20): "If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." Reference is made in 1 Cor. xii. 4-6 to the church in her relation to each of the three "There are diversities of gifts,

but the same Spirit; and there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord; and there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.” In Eph. ii. 18 we find the words, "Through him (the Son) we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father." Lastly, in Eph. iii. 14-17, the apostle says, "I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." The same distinct fellowship with each of the Divine Persons is embodied in many other Scriptures, and most notably in the apostolic benedictions.

In what particulars, then, and on what grounds, can the believer hold this fellowship with God in the person of the Father?

1. As first in the order of subsistence, the Father is the Representative and Administrator of Law, to whom supreme allegiance is due. Man, created in the divine image, is possessed of a moral nature which at once brings him under the jurisdiction of law. His original righteousness is a derived, not a self-existent, quality entirely dependent upon the divine holiness which it simply reflects. It must therefore be subjected to a test, in order that through voluntary obedience his will may be brought into correspondence with the will of his maker, thus adopting the divine holiness as the

regulating principle of his life. When, under force of temptation, he violated this law he was brought under the penalty of disobedience. No truth can be more solemn than this, that in no condition or state of existence can man absolve himself from the control and authority of the divine law. If, therefore, it should please God to show mercy to the transgressor, the foundation of the scheme must be laid in meeting the requirements of strict justice. Thus we find the Father appointing the Son to the work of redemption, exacting of him the full endurance of the penalty, requiring a perfect obedience to the precepts, establishing a perfect righteousness, in the which the sinner may stand completely justified before the law which he has broken. In applying this remedy to the case of an individual sinner, the first stage is distinctly a legal process producing conviction of sin. This is done by the Holy Spirit bringing the divine law close to the awakened conscience, the lower tribunal which God has erected in the human soul. Through a judicial indictment the law flashes its light into the guilty soul, until it is made to tremble in apprehension of the doom which it anticipates. There can be no proper sense of sin except as seen in the light of God's awful holiness. The natural man in his unrenewed state knows sin only under its human aspects as crime or vice. These, occurring only in human relations and against the interests of general society, have a human standard by which they may be measured. Both these are doubtless sins against God;

but are recognized as such only when seen as committed against him. It is when the commandment comes, to use the apostle's language, that "sin revives and we die.” (Rom. vii. 9.) Doubtless the work of the Spirit is to produce this conviction of sin through the action of the law upon the conscience; but it is through the official administration of law by the Father that this process of conviction obtains. David's "offence" against Uriah was "rank and smelled to heaven"; but it was only when his conscience was stirred by the Holy Spirit that he breathes his confession, "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight." (Ps. li. 4.)

Just at this point, when the penitent sinner pleads for mercy at the throne of grace, it is again the office of the Father to dispense the pardon for which the suppliant sues. The sense of reconciliation with God, through the sealing of this pardon upon the troubled conscience, discloses the fellowship which the renewed soul has now with the Father. All that has been here described in the passage of a sinner from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light has its repetition through the whole after experience of the believer. As he advances in the divine life he gains deeper views of the hatefulness of sin, turns from it with increasing abhorrence, feels more intently the joy of reconciliation with God, and thus becomes more and more distinctly conscious of his fellowship with the Father. The Scriptures give no hint that the first Person of the Godhead will ever resign this office as administrator of law. For

even after the decisions of the judgment day, the Son will deliver up the kingdom to the Father, that God may be all in all. (1 Cor. xv. 24.) Having pronounced the Father's benediction upon those at his right hand, the Son has fulfilled on earth his office as Redeemer. He will lead the mighty procession through the gates of pearl into the presence of the Father (Ps. xxiv.): saying, here are those whom thou gavest me to be redeemed; I return them to thee freed from the curse and stain of sin-"washed, sanctified, justified." (1 Cor. vi. 11.) Thus, through a long eternity, the law, which has "been magnified and made honorable" (Isa. xlii. 21) through the obedience of the Son, will be administered by the Father over the universe; and the redeemed will forever rejoice in their fellowship with him as the executive and representative of the Godhead.

2. There is fellowship with the Father in the Sovereignty of his Electing Love. This doctrine is so often misunderstood and misrepresented that it will be well to set it forth in the express language of Scripture. In the Old Testament the Messiah is described as the chosen or elect of the Father. In Isa. xlii. 1 we read as follows: "Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect in whom my soul delighteth: I have put my Spirit upon him; he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles." In Isa. xi. 1, 2: "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him," etc. If, then, the Redeemer of men is thus described